# What type of weaponry would be needed to hurt someone 1000x more durable than a normal human?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [April 9, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689 "2021-04-09T16:55:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/1 "2021-04-09T16:55:58Z")
If a superhuman was a thousand times more durable than a normal man what type of military weaponry would be necessary to hurt or kill them (Artillery, missiles, cannons etc)?
What’s the most powerful military weapon they could feasibly survive?
---
### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/2 "2021-04-09T16:59:03Z")
What else could “1000 times more durable” mean, other than “it takes 1000 times as much energy”?
---
### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/3 "2021-04-09T16:59:10Z")
I think an A bomb will probably do the trick
---
### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/4 "2021-04-09T17:08:33Z")
Well a tank is probably 1000x more durable than a normal human. And to kill a tank:
> **[On Killing Tanks - Modern War Institute](https://mwi.usma.edu/on-killing-tanks/)**
>
> I would rather be the hammer than the anvil. — Erwin Rommel Ever since modern tanks’ first appearance on the twentieth-century battlefield, infantry forces and their armored counterparts have \[…\]
---
### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/5 "2021-04-09T17:16:09Z")
High powered rifles can fire large bullets at high speed that are said to be able to penetrate an engine block from a car. Even a human that is 1000 times more ‘durable’ than normal might be harmed or even killed by such a bullet. It depends on what 1000 times more ‘durable’ means. A bullet like that will certainly harm a human if it can penetrate just 1 inch into the body. Could such a bullet pass through 84 feet of ballistics gel? I don’t have any idea.
ETA: [This Quora answer says a 50 caliber bullet can penetrate 32 inches of ballistics gel.](https://www.quora.com/How-many-heads-in-a-row-could-a-shot-of-a-sniper-rifle-pass#:~:text=K%20answer%20views-,A%20.,32%20inches%20of%20ballistics%20gellatin.) However, that doesn’t sound like something that could penetrate an engine block.
---
### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/6 "2021-04-09T17:17:19Z")
Durable inside and out, or just the exterior?
---
### Author:  [@Keith1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith1)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/7 "2021-04-09T17:29:13Z")
Kryptonite.
---
### Author:  [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/8 "2021-04-09T17:44:45Z")
Inside and out.
---
### Author:  [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/9 "2021-04-09T18:01:52Z")
Define “durable”.
---
### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/10 "2021-04-09T18:16:31Z")
In _The Preacher_ comic, they try killing a demonic assassin-type character with a nuclear missile. Doesn’t work. Ironically, the religious organization failed to realize that he, not being a normal flesh-and-blood guy, is not vulnerable to physical damage. Like those _D&D_ characters that can only be wounded by magical weapons.
What you need in situations like that is some sort of _Brahmāstra._
[ ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Narada_and_Vyasa_came_to_stop_Brahmasironamakastra_used_by_Aswatthama_and_Arjuna.jpg)
You need to make sure not to blast an ordinary human with one of those, though. It would be bad.
---
### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/11 "2021-04-09T18:27:29Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> High powered rifles can fire large bullets at high speed that are said to be able to penetrate an engine block from a car. Even a human that is 1000 times more ‘durable’ than normal might be harmed or even killed by such a bullet. It depends on what 1000 times more ‘durable’ means. A bullet like that will certainly harm a human if it can penetrate just 1 inch into the body. Could such a bullet pass through 84 feet of ballistics gel? I don’t have any idea.
>
> ETA: [This Quora answer says a 50 caliber bullet can penetrate 32 inches of ballistics gel.](https://www.quora.com/How-many-heads-in-a-row-could-a-shot-of-a-sniper-rifle-pass#:~:text=K%20answer%20views-,A%20.,32%20inches%20of%20ballistics%20gellatin.) However, that doesn’t sound like something that could penetrate an engine block.
There’s a difference between penetrating 32 inches of ballistics gel and penetrating 1 inch of a material that’s 32 times more “durable” than ballistics gel.
_Mythbusters_ tried firing various weapons into water, which is even less “durable” than ballistics gel. The low energy handgun rounds went a few feet. The more energetic rounds actually penetrated _less_. The .50 BMG round caused a huge splash, and apparently didn’t penetrate the water _at all_. They only found fragments of it at the bottom of the pool - instead of penetrating the water, it simply disintegrated on impact.
A .50 BMG round absolutely can penetrate steel, even light vehicle armor, and rifles in that caliber are used by the U.S. military as anti-materiel rifles, including to disable vehicle engines.
If the target is 1,000 times as _large_ as a human, a .50 BMG round probably won’t do anything useful. If the target is a normal human-sized superhuman that’s 1,000 times as “durable”, I suspect a .50 BMG round would be useful, but _probably_ wouldn’t achieve a kill.
---
### Author:  [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/12 "2021-04-09T19:14:00Z")
A 9mm bullet typically has about 600 j of energy if we need to impart 1000 times that amount of energy we’re looking at 600 kj of energy most of the 50 cal bullets I found ran around 18 kj of energy so not nearly enough. An F1 grenade runs about 250kj so about half what we need. I can’t find good numbers for various sape charges but I think we be in that range or a shoulder propelled rocket to get to 600kj.
While you could kill them with the rocket it would be alot about location and they could walk away from a misplaced shot.
---
### Author:  [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/13 "2021-04-10T02:36:38Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> I think an A bomb will probably do the trick
Nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure 😉
Brian
---
### Author:  [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/14 "2021-04-10T03:08:57Z")
# [Ass bomb](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQ1lv4hsUA)
---
### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/15 "2021-04-10T03:29:47Z")
I don’t _think_ we’d have to resort to nuking the [whatever]; anti-tank weapons ought to do the trick.
The M829A3 version of the U.S. [M829 round](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M829) (which is an “armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot long dart penetrator” designed to be shot by tanks at other tanks) has (according to Wikipedia) a muzzle energy of 12.1 megajoules (or 8.9 million foot-pounds). It doesn’t explode or anything; it’s just a two-and-a-half-foot-long, twenty-two-pound dart that comes at you at 3,500 MPH (and is made of depleted uranium, which is both super-dense, and also tends to catch on fire when you shoot it through the armor of a tank—hard to say if that last property would apply to our [whatever] that’s “1,000x more durable than a human”).
If we somewhat simple-mindedly just divide 12,100,000 joules (or 8,900,000 foot-pounds) by one thousand we wind up with 12,100 J / 8,900 ft-lb. So, relative to the [whatever] we could sort of expect a modern anti-tank round to be equivalent to a [.700 Nitro Express](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.700_Nitro_Express) compared to a standard human. To give you an idea of what that likely means for the [whatever], the .700 Nitro Express is a round designed to be shot from the sort of rifles that are usually referred to as “elephant guns”.
---
### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/16 "2021-04-10T04:51:07Z")
Something with 1000x more kinetic energy than a handgun. A 380 acp has about 270 Joules of energy, so in theory you need something with 270,000 joules of energy. A few well placed 380 shots will kill a human, so something 1000x times stronger will kill something 1000x more durable.
A 50 caliber BMG has about 20,000 so that won’t do it. An anti-tank rifle has about 50,000 Joules. Thats about 1000 times stronger than a BB gun. A BB gun won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt and scare you off.
A tank round has 3 million joules of energy, more than enough.
If you want 270,000 Joules of energy (1000x more KE than a 380 ACP handgun), you need a 1kg projectile flying at ~750m/s, or a 1/2kg projectile at around 1100m/s. That should be fairly portable for a person or a small squad. That sounds like a fairly small cannon, I believe napoleonic cannons fired shells about 5kg.
Looking online, this is the size of a cannon firing 1kg shells in the civil war. Fairly portable.
[ ](https://www.lovettartillery.com/pics/Woodruff_Gun_2_Pounder_3.jpg)
Or you could just hit them with your car. That would probably do a lot of damage.
---
### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/17 "2021-04-10T05:04:19Z")
Whatever you do, “He’ll be back”.
---
### Author:  [@DeathPool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeathPool)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/18 "2021-04-10T05:44:32Z")
A giant John Wilkes Booth
---
### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/19 "2021-04-10T06:43:01Z")
Ditka.
---
### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2021, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689/20 "2021-04-10T06:51:32Z")
> [@squeegee](#):
>
> Ass bomb
Don’t be the lame guy. Don’t just throw up a link to a video. That is not an answer. It’s not clever or amusing no matter how brilliant the actual video is. IT IS ACTIVELY FOSTERING IGNORANCE, not fighting it.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-type-of-weaponry-would-be-needed-to-hurt-someone-1000x-more-durable-than-a-normal-human/939689.md?page=2)